Adaptation funding gap for Africa

8 November 2021

Key Findings
● There is scientific consensus that Africa is the most vulnerable region to impacts of climate change.
● African governments currently spend between 2%-9% of their GDP on funding adaptation
programmes.
● Africa needs 20% of the total global spending needed to reduce the damage caused by rising
temperatures.
● In 2017, the estimated gap between how much Africa spent on adaptation and what it needed to
spend was about 80%. This gap is probably wider today.
● As the cost of adaptation rises for least developed countries (LDCs) on the African continent, the
gap between what is needed and what is pledged will widen without drastic change in current
financing models.

Africa least responsible and most impacted by climate change

● Africa is expected to suffer much higher losses, further accentuating their development
disadvantages and vulnerabilities to climate change, according to the latest UNEP Adaptation Gap
Report.
● Climate crisis disproportionately affects Africa, given it contributed very little to the current climate
crisis (in 2017, Africa was responsible for just 4% of global fossil fuel emissions).
● The African continent is already warming quicker - and relative sea levels rising faster - than the
world average, the IPCC said in its recent 6th assessment report. In the next decade, Africa will see
more common and intense heatwaves - up to five times more common in 2050 than today - as well
as heavier precipitation, more flooding, increasingly frequent and strong tropical cyclones, and more
frequent and intense droughts.
● In 2019, five African countries - Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi, South Sudan and Niger - were
among the top ten most affected by extreme weather in the world, according to Germanwatch. An
extreme event often triggers a cascade of other climate impacts.

Africa is paying more than its fair share of adaptation costs

● African nations are already shouldering 20% of the
total adaptation expenditure required to reduce the
economic impacts of climate change, contrary to the
insinuation that African countries are not investing in
their own climate adaptation responses.
● African governments currently spend between 2%-9%
of their GDP on funding adaptation programmes.
● For Africa as a whole, the estimated gap between
how much it currently spends on adaptation and what
is needed is about 80%.
● The adaptation gap is greater than 90% in nine
Source: African climate policy center (2017)
countries. Most of these countries face major information brief.
exposure to climate change risks as well as fiscal
challenges.

Least Developed Nations (NDCs) need for adaptation financing will rise
● Annual adaptation costs in developing countries, currently estimated at USD 70 billion, will rise to
USD 300 billion by 2030 and USD 500 billion by 2050.
● Research of the investments reported to the Development Assistance Committee’s creditor
reporting system could only verify that, over a five-year period (2014-2018), USD 5.9 billion of
climate adaptation finance was invested in LDCs where climate adaptation was the primary
objective.
● Less than 20% of the adaptation finance received by LDCs is invested in projects most likely to
deliver transformative adaptation. If this trend continues, this would equate to less than 3% of
estimated LDCs annual adaptation finance needs between 2020–2030.